Lancia History: Lancia Automobiles was an Italian company that opened in 1906. Lancia has a long line of credits in Italy and built the first 5-speed manual transmission, V4 and V6 engines and independent suspension in production cars. A few Lancia models were imported to the United States during the 1950's and 1960's and it was officially imported from 1977 to 1982. Lancia was purchased by Fiat in 1969.